


Happy Birthday

by Ellimac



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Asexual Awareness Week, Asexual Characters, Fluff, Genderqueer Character, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-16
Updated: 2014-11-16
Packaged: 2018-02-25 13:55:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2624246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellimac/pseuds/Ellimac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>LaFontaine wants to do something for Perry's birthday, but it's not that easy to decide what it should be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy Birthday

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for asexual awareness week, right before terrible things started happening to LaFontaine. Needless to say, this is set before all that.

Perry’s birthday is coming up. LaFontaine is probably the only one in the building, possibly on the entire campus, who knows. Perry just doesn’t like to make a big deal out of her birthday, and LaFontaine knows better than to throw a party, or even tell anyone else. It will be a nice, quiet birthday.

But they do want to get her a gift. And, being a college student and short on money, that means they have to get creative.

So they make a list. At first, everything they can think of goes on it. Once they have about ten things, they start crossing them off.

Birthday sex is the first thing that gets crossed off. LaFontaine only wrote it in as a joke, really, because probably somebody somewhere would write it down seriously, but Perry’s not that into sex and neither, truth be told, is LaFontaine. It’s all well and good to offer to help do the dishes, but of the other person wasn’t going to do the dishes anyway, there’s not much point.

Some kind of fun science experiment gets crossed off, too, although not without regret. It’d be pretty neat to figure out how to make some bacteria spell “happy birthday” under a microscope, but Perry’s just about had it with weird, and LaFontaine knows she won’t appreciate more of it, even in the form of a birthday present.

“Knit something” goes next. It would be all well and good, if LaFontaine knew how to knit, and if they had time to knit something before the day.

Hair ties. Unoriginal, and Perry is one of those people who somehow manages to never lose a hair tie, ever.

Draw something. But draw what? And more specifically, draw what within the limited range of things LaFontaine can draw?

Bake a cake. Plausible. More plausible than most items on the list. They’d have to get ingredients, bake it and frost it without anyone else noticing, but they can do that. Hell, there’s some kind of ridiculous disaster every other day at Silas. It won’t be that hard to wait for a distraction and bake then.

Of course, they forget that when there _is_ such an event, they are usually in the middle of it, or at least involved. As such, they don’t actually get started baking a cake until about two in the morning. It’s only due to luck that they don’t fall asleep while it’s still in the oven and set the building on fire. And then it’s too hot to frost, so they decide to let it cool for half an hour first, but then next time they look at the clock it’s six thirty and Perry’s probably already awake and getting a jump on her official duties or her homework or something. At least the cake looks okay, nothing growing out of it or anything.

LaFontaine knows they should probably be doing something else, like maybe work on that big lab report that’s due this week,  but Perry’s birthday cake seems a lot more important right now.

So they flip it out of the pan (some of the corners stick, but that’s okay, they can make it up with extra frosting in those corners) and start frosting. Then, once that’s all done, they pull out the icing tubes and start writing, in shaky, unevenly-sized letters, “Happy Birthday Perry.”

Except before they get halfway through, there’s a knock on the door. They turn, and the “t” in “birthday” gets an extra-long cross.

“Just a sec,” LaFontaine says. It’s bound to be Perry. Who else comes knocking at 6:45 in the morning? They look around frantically, but on short notice, there’s nothing to cover the cake with. They’re just going to have to hope Perry doesn’t notice.

They open the door and sure enough, there’s Perry.

“Hi,” Perry says. “I just wanted to check on you after the microscope thing yesterday. Are you all right? You’re still wearing the same clothes.”

“I’m fine,” LaFontaine says, wondering exactly how conspicuous they would be if they lounged seductively against the doorway to block Perry’s view of the room. “I, um, was so tired after I got home that I just fell asleep in my clothes.”

“Oh,” says Perry, her face lapsing into a familiar concerned look. “And what’s that smell? Have you been cooking?” She cranes her neck to see around them.

“No! I mean, yes,” LaFontaine says hurriedly. “It’s a… it’s homework. For bio.”

“Really? It smells kind of like chocolate…” Perry peers into the room despite LaFontaine’s best efforts to stop her. “What’s that? Is that a cake?”

LaFontaine gives up. “Uh… yeah,” they say. “Happy birthday.”

They step aside and let Perry in. Perry makes a beeline for the cake.

“I wanted to finish it before I gave it to you,” LaFontaine says. “I was going to make it yesterday, but then… the microscope thing, you know. I was almost done frosting it when you knocked.”

“Oh, Su—LaFontaine,” Perry says, sounding surprisingly choked up. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“Yeah, but I did,” LaFontaine says, trying not to let defensiveness creep into their voice. “So… I hope you like it.”

“It’s… it’s lovely.” Again with that choke-up sound. And then she turns around and hugs them. It takes LaFontaine a second, but they get their arms around Perry before she lets go.

“Of course it’s loaded with sugar—I can’t possibly eat it all myself,” Perry says, suddenly back to businesslike. For a second LaFontaine’s almost insulted, until they realize what she’s saying.

“Oh,” they say. “Oh, no, you have to eat the first piece at least. After I finish icing it.”

“Okay, well, I’ve got to get going,” Perry says, pointing vaguely out the door. “Lots to do before class at eight, you know. How about we get together at lunch and eat it then?”

“Sounds great,” LaFontaine says. “Hey, before you go…”

“Hmm?”

They lean up to kiss her cheek. Perry’s mouth opens in surprise, but she closes it quickly and returns the kiss with a warm peck.

“Happy birthday,” LaFontaine says again.

“Yes,” Perry says. “Thank you.” And she’s out the door, snapping it shut behind her and leaving LaFontaine to grin ridiculously to an empty room.


End file.
